Monkeys in the Zoo

When I'm out walking with the dogs each morning, we see joggers and bikers and other walkers. Without fail, everyone gives us a smile and often a "good morning!". Who can help but be in a good mood when you live in such a beautiful part of the world? And be out in the glorious fresh air of the new day? Fairly often, we also receive this compliment: "beautiful dogs!".

Of course they are beautiful dogs. They are groomed, in good physical condition, and, most importantly, trained (i.e., heavily rewarded) to behave themselves, more or less, on lead and in public. Even Azza has learned how to accept these compliments gracefully (she usually growls at people who speak to me).

But the larger issue is contained in the smiles and the greetings--such a pleasing social custom. See, in Dhahran, I might see other people while out walking the dogs but unless I knew them, there would be no eye contact, no smile, no greeting. Definitely none of those things if they were Saudi or Asian.

Bizarrely, there were some rather specific times in Dhahran we generated a response in passers-by. On multiple occasions when I was walking the dogs, an enormous SUV would pull up next to us, heavily tinted windows coming down to reveal a car crammed with fully veiled women and half a dozen frenetic toddlers and children, none of whom were in car seats, pointing and gibbering at me and the dogs.

Like we were monkeys in the zoo.

I nearly always had a baggie of dog poop in one hand since pooping was a primary reason for walking the dogs. I quickly began to tap into the zoo monkey umwelt because after the fifth or dozenth time this happened, I found myself overwhelmed by a desire to fling that bag of shit right into that car.

We are not exhibits in the zoo anymore.

Harry Is the Center of the Universe

The girls arranged themselves around Harry. They don't normally sleep together like this. I think this is an expression of the disquiet they feel over the household disruptions.

I also had the A/C turned down a little too low!

Sun

Harry and Azza napping in the afternoon sun.

CircusK9 Is Tired

All the disruption today took its toll. I woke up around midnight to discover myself swaddled in animals.

Note the interesting placement. Although Azza has been trained to stay towards the foot of the bed, HellBeast decided to cede the coveted spot near my head to Tsingy. She hasn't slept on the bed in months.

Agility in KSA

The final session of agility in Dhahran is drawing to a close. As of this post, we only have two more classes left. We have had a dynamic and dedicated group for this last set of classes so it is a bit sad to know it will soon end. It is so heartening to see the progress that the handlers have made.

 

Last week, I designed a Novice Snooker course with three red jumps. I don’t actually have three red jumps so the yellow jump had to be a red one for the morning. And I included the table, an obstacle which is never used in Snooker in the real world. But when doing agility in KSA, we can change the rules as we need to!

 

Some of my friends have been making jokes about “you won’t miss that” when the F16s scream overhead every minute or so or when we are faced with some particularly idiotic situation that is unique to living in Dhahran and working for Aramco. And they are right, I won’t miss any of that. There isn’t much I’m going to miss when I leave here.

 

Mangos, now that is something I am going to miss. Round, oval, green, red, or yellow outside, gorgeous pale yellow or deep orange inside, sweet or sour. I will miss mangos in all of their glorious variety.

 

And I’m going to miss the agility classes too. They have been such a lifesaver for me. They are close enough to the real thing to satisfy both me and Mimi. And being the instructor has been an amazing experience. I have learned so much about teaching agility, which is not at all the same thing as doing agility yourself with your own dog. I will miss all of the agility class participants as each one brings a unique challenge and perspective. I know that I am a better handler by the simple act of helping others to become better handlers.

 

We don’t have a lot of equipment but I’ve tried to make the most of what we do have. Even with the challenges of our limited equipment, I now see patterns of obstacles and handling pathways very differently than I did before I started the classes.

 

The weekly exercise of designing a sequence with the intent of teaching a specific skill has given me deeper insights into handling. Having all sorts of dogs in class (old, young, slow, fast, tall, short) has given me a broader understanding of handling paths. I have learned an amazing amount about agility and dog handling by teaching the agility classes and will really miss the weekly challenge of figuring out what we should work on and how to get us all there.

 

I grumble to myself every week as I pack the car on Wednesday night. I have to haul all of the equipment from my hovel to my car in at least two, sometimes three dolly trips, over a distance of about 100 feet, which doesn’t sound like much until you walk it back and forth four times in a row. The equipment fits into the car only one way so I can’t just toss things in there. Then at the school parking lot, we have to unpack the cars (CJ is regularly carrying some of the equipment for this session) and haul it up a curb then down a somewhat steep hill over a distance of about 300 feet. Depending on the morning, it might take us a couple of trips to accomplish that. Next we set up the course, usually in the dark as the field has no lights. Then after class, the whole thing goes in reverse, except now it’s uphill. I spend more than a couple of hours each week hauling equipment around and stacking and unstacking it in various locations. Grumble, grumble.

 

I’m going to miss that.

Mimi and Azza

I'm trying for the FOURTH time to get this video from my new iPad to display in my blog. I'll get it figured out eventually!

This head-patting thing is very odd. Mimi is being very tolerant of Azza.

Notice Harry curled up in the dog bed. When the girls get going, they are quite careful to avoid disturbing him.

Training Azza 14

Azza had a pretty good day.

This seems like a weird way to begin a post about a dog but you have to remember that she is a feral dog, only tamed, not domesticated.

All three dogs had to go to the vet clinic today for their DHLP vaccinations, required annually and required at least 30 days before they make the big trip back to the U.S. They had their rabies shots before I visited the U.S. in January--I always stagger the dogs' shots by at least two weeks.

Azza got on the scale and sat quietly so we could get her weight (16 kg), let the vet look in her ears with a scary looking device, poke around between her toes, examine her belly, even lift her tail and look at her butt. Wisely, he didn't bother to examine her teeth.

She wasn't happy but she wasn't even close to freaking out. She wouldn't take a treat from him but she did take it from me out in the waiting room when I was paying the bill.

Then when we were out for our regular walk after I got home from work (the weather is gorgeous), she offered a nose touch on a tire swing that had two weeks earlier gotten her quite wound up, and offered a paw touch on a big piece of cardboard tossed onto the sidewalk.

To cap this lovely, long walk off, she calmly, without hackling or growling, walked past a baby stroller and a kid on a bike. Of course I was asking her to look at me and shoving treats in her mouth every step, but that is just a detail.

There is a large difference between domesticated, meaning selected and bred for many generations by humans, and tamed. Azza and her ancestors have not been directly shaped by the whims and demands of humans. Sure, there has been some indirect shaping because the feral dogs always live near humans and thus there must be some co-dependent adaption. Still, I marvel at the distance between Mimi, a dog whose lines have been selected for a couple of centuries to be pleasing and responsive to us, and Azza, a feral dog whose lines have been mostly shaped by those individuals who survived long enough to breed.

Nonetheless, I persist. I was lucky to get Azza when she was so young. I was lucky that I already knew a good bit about training dogs and had ready, reliable methods to use with her. I am lucky that my terriers are so accepting of other animals in the household. And I'm lucky that Azza is a healthy, happy, playful young animal who has learned to love treats, praise, and toys.

Ignoring Azza (Training Azza 13)

Azza had an interesting learning moment yesterday. I was walking the dogs as usual and while we were nearing the hovel on our return, we encountered a guy that I’ve met at social events a couple of times. He had a question for me about some dishes his sister had insisted that he bring to KSA with him when he moved.

Normally when I’m walking the dogs I don’t let anyone approach me nor do I approach anyone unless the dogs already know them. Azza is far too unpredictable in her response and often displays fear behaviors that understandably get some people a bit worked up, which in turn gets her even more worked up. It’s a vicious cycle that I have found best to avoid altogether.

However, I’ve discovered an interesting thing: when I tell people to ignore Azza completely and to not make eye contact with her or even look in her direction, she doesn’t get nearly as fearful. So I agreed to walk over and take a look at the dishes but I first gave the guy these instructions. 

Fortunately, he’s a smart guy and did exactly as I asked. He and I had a conversation about the dishes (whether they were worth anything, what he should do with them since he didn’t have room to keep them, etc.). The terriers ignored him as he clearly had nothing of interest for them (i.e., no food). Azza slipped behind me when I got close to the guy and hackled up but she didn’t growl or drop to the ground. I ignored her, he ignored her, the terriers ignored everybody, and suddenly I realized that Azza was moving forward towards the guy to sniff him. 

This is fabulous because this is the default behavior I’ve been working on when she sees something scary, the “what is it?” command which requires her to give the scary thing a nose touch/sniff to earn a treat. Without missing a beat, I reminded the guy to ignore her and we continued talking about the dishes. Azza gave him a quick sniff then casually returned to my side.

This was quite a breakthrough for her. It’s the second time that she has successfully been around a stranger during our walks and not completely lost her shit, and the first time that she approached a stranger on her own with no negative reaction. It helps that both times I’ve encountered people that followed my instructions to ignore her no matter what she does. Azza certainly isn’t ready for random interactions yet.

You probably have a dog who thinks everyone he sees is his friend. The terriers are generally that way, although living here has dampened their response a lot since so many people we pass on our walks are scared of them and freak out if the terriers drift towards them to see if they can be greeted. Azza is simply a different beast. Her first response to anything new is fear, fear, fear: hackle, growl, and run away if possible and if it’s not, get as scary as possible (for example, her eyes become enormously dilated and she pulls her ears down and out from her head, parallel to the ground like helicopter rotors). This new behavior of cautious approach (on her terms) is a tiny baby step but it represents a huge shift in her emotional state.

Desert Dog and Rain

It rained in our area for almost 8 hours yesterday. This time it was a real rain, not the usual spit of moisture and dust that leaves a film of dried mud on everything. Wunderground.com reports 16 mm, consistent with data from local Aramco weather stations.

I have stopped the dogs’ pre-dawn walks again because the feral dog pack has been getting more aggressive and I don’t want to take the risk of being stalked and attacked in the dark. So I try my best to rush home from work, throw on some walking clothes, and take the beasts out for a good long walk while we have a bit of daylight left.

There was no daylight yesterday and in fact it was raining steadily but I decided to walk the dogs anyway. It wasn’t that cold, only about 53 F. Harry and Mimi have experienced much more challenging conditions. But the main reason I decided to walk them was to give Azza her first experience with rain. She’s a year old and while it did rain a tiny bit in February and March of this year, she’s never seen real rain.

Mimi spent the walk hunched over trying to look as miserable as possible while Harry trotted along as if it was just another day.

As an aside, Harry adores his daily walks. I reach for my shoes and the leashes and he starts doing what I call his “walkie dance” in which he shuffles and hops from foot to foot, so excited he can hardly contain himself. He only stops dancing long enough to get close to me so I can snap his collar on.
I quickly discovered a rather interesting design flaw in desert dog Azza: her ears. Those enormous upright ears become rain scoops. You could almost hear the drops plinking into them. She squinted and tilted her head and held first one then the other ear down to sort out these new sensations. (She has extremely fine control over her ears and is able to independently rotate them almost 180 degrees from upright to flattened back against her head.)

Then she discovered the rain itself. She slowly looked up and realized that something was falling from the sky. Naturally she began to leap up into the air again and again trying to catch the rain drops. She was so joyful and excited to learn about this wonderful new thing in her world. She splashed through mud and puddles as if they weren’t there (Harry and Mimi walk around puddles). I let her get just as wet and dirty as she wanted because she’s got an easy-care coat like the terriers.

When we got home, they all got a good rubdown with the towel I had strategically left by the door and after a bit of zoomies around the living room, a roll on the Persian carpet, and some dinner, all settled down for a nap.

Agility in KSA

The latest season of agility in KSA is winding down. We'll be taking a break from about Christmas to the beginning of February.

We added some new handlers for this set of classes and I'm very proud of the progress that everyone has made in the past 10 weeks.

With intermediate-level handlers to serve as models, I felt that I could push the new ones quite a bit and the intermediate handlers even harder. Most of them are doing respectable to impeccable front crosses and RFPs, can sort of read course maps, can handle serpentines and threadles, and can direct their dogs to the backside of jumps. Their start-line stays aren't quite where I'd like them to be but that is because none of them are practicing this at home despite my weekly exhortations/pleading/nagging (my actual tone doesn't seem to make any difference). Most of the handlers are doing two sets of somewhat closed 2x2 weaves. PM and her yellow lab Nellie are doing six poles (three sets of 2x2x) with nearly closed poles. I have been enforcing handler positions and dog entries and we've been using targets for most of the dogs for the weave exercises. If we can keep at it, I may have 3 of the dogs doing inline weaves by the end of the next session (February-March 2013).

We've done skills challenges, CleanRun Backyard Dogs courses, and courses of my own design. Sometimes they work flowing sequences of 7 to 10 obstacles and sometimes they work skills on 3 or 4 obstacles. I try to mix it up as much as I can with our tiny equipment set.

It's really interesting to me to figure out what each dog and handler pair needs in the way of coaching and guidance. Some of my readers who do agility would probably find that maddening. I find new insights into how people and dogs learn and how they "see" agility obstacles. Sometimes getting a handler to do her front cross in the right place at the right time is a huge success. Sometimes getting a dog over a jump with joy and intent is the success. Every action is measured anew for each team.

For both the basic obedience and the agility classes, I decided to increase the level of my communication with them outside of class. A couple of days after every class, I send an email to everyone recapping what we did in class, explaining things in detail as needed, and tell them what we will be working on for the upcoming class, and reminding them of the skills they should be practicing as homework. The emails are a lot of work as each one may take me 30-45 minutes to write and edit. It's a one-sided communication as I rarely get replies but I have had several handlers tell me that they appreciate the emails.

I haven't posted many photos because the larger class size doesn't give me that luxury. But I'll leave you with this:

Seven jumps, two tunnels, one chute, five pairs of tunnel bags, three sets of 2x2 bases, all the required poles, two gear bags (one with water, numbered cones, shade, and clips, and the other with treats, toys, clickers, targets, course maps, wallet, phone, and all of that kind of personal gear), six weave poles (hinged on a steel base and not actually in this load), a crate dolly, assorted bungees, Mimi's soft crate, and Mimi (in the front passenger seat) in one Honda CRV. Whew!

Training Azza 12

I’ve commented before on what I believe is a fundamental
miswiring in the brains of feral or “desert” dogs such as Azza. They engage in
behaviors that are unusual in most domesticated dogs. They are overly sensitive to environmental triggers that many domesticated dogs would ignore. It isn’t simply a case of socialization or training. I’ve had Azza since she was about 7 weeks old and she’s as well socialized and trained as any dog I’ve had. While necessary, socialization and training are not even close to being sufficient to make these dogs '"normal.” As is the case with any wild animal, we are at best only taming them. I’ve begun to view working with Azza as a project to provide her with tools to cope with the world. Training isn't going to make her "normal" but it will help her to be less stressed and fearful. She is now a year old and while she can be incredibly frustrating to manage at times, I have to admit that she and I have come a long way together.

In the past two years, I’ve worked with about 10 different
desert dogs in private training settings and I’ve seen a good cross section of the behaviors that they can exhibit. Most of them prefer to flee than fight but they will offer subtle yet clear signals when they are thinking about attack. When they are pushed to the point of attack, it is amazingly quick, nearly silent, and often extremely violent (that is, their intent is to kill or disable). No half measures with these dogs.

The feral dogs are incredibly lithe, lean, and strong. There is a lot of power packed into those skinny bodies. Handling them is not for the faint of heart or will. You have to be willing to stand your ground and you have to be extremely consistent. For example, Azza is trained to sit at doorways. I taught her this mainly to prevent her from bumping Harry in a clusterfuck rush in and out. She will not go in the house until I give a verbal release and a hand signal. And the hand signal must come from my right hand, the hand closest to her. If I gesture with my left hand or give a verbal only or fail to give a verbal at all, she won't move. In other words, she is beautifully trainable but remarkably inflexible in applying that training. Everything has to be done exactly the same way every time or she gets worried, stressed, anxious, and then begins to act out.

Pfft, you say, that's hardly an example of problematic behavior. But it is a good example of her inability to function in unfamiliar situations, even though the only "unfamiliar" aspect of that is the use of my left hand instead of my right. If something as trivial and simple as that makes her worry, imagine her reaction when confronted with much more chaotic situations. When one of these tornadoes wrapped in dog skin acts out, there can be problems. But they are problems that can be managed if you are willing to put in the training time.

I started working earlier this year with a couple who had adopted a desert dog puppy they found wandering the streets. I did a series of private lessons with them during the summer and they signed up for my basic obedience class. As of Thursday, they had successfully completed 5 weeks of it. The dog was quite typical for a desert feral but had a set of fear issues that I thought was far smaller and less problematic than Azza's. I thought all was well with them until I got a call from the woman on Friday asking me about a problem they were having when they were walking the dog.

Upul and I have been working through the exact same problem with Azza all summer long. You'd be walking along thinking all was well when she'd suddenly flip out and start to leap and lunge and nip and bite at you. The behavior was random and I could never identify a trigger. After watching her carefully, I decided that she was wasn't acting out from fear. But beyond that I still don't know why she behaved this way. Rather than anthropomorphize, I could only observe her actions and devise a plan to deal with them. In the end, the best way to handle these fits was to grab her collar and wait them out. She nipped Upul for quite a bit longer than she did me because he wasn't willing (at first) to be firm enough with her. It took nearly all of my strength to hold on to her some days. She acted like she was possessed by an evil spirit or perhaps having some sort of fantastic stroke. It was incredibly frustrating because it was random.

After suffering through a couple of months of this, I realized that I needed to change my approach. I upped the rate of rewards she got during walks to a treat delivered every few feet (we are going through kibble at a prodigious rate) and that has made a huge difference. Azza would much rather have a bunch of treats than be collared until she calms down. She gets a treat for not eating stuff off the ground. She gets a treat for calmly looking at a scary abaya wafting by or a terrifying kid on a skateboard shooting past then looking back at me. She gets a treat for walking in heel position on a loose lead. She now ever so gently bumps my hand with her nose if she thinks she's being good and hasn't had a reward in the past 30 seconds! In short, I began a training and reward frenzy and over a period of a couple of months reshaped her behavior so that there simply isn't room for her fits.

I spoke to the woman on the phone about ways to deal with their dog's fits, relating some of the problems I had with Azza and some of the things that worked for us, and I emailed them first thing Saturday morning with more detailed advice. Given their success to date, I had every expectation that they would work through this with their dog.

So you can imagine my horror when I got an email this morning from the man telling me that they decided to put the dog to sleep.

PM, MW, and I joined forces tonight and let our pack of five dogs run wild in an empty backyard. While watching Nellie pound Azza into the dirt while Mimi looked for an opportunity to sneak in a bite and Boodle danced around the edge of the melee barking ever so threateningly and Harry nosed around in the grass around our feet for something to nibble on, we drank a toast to poor Roxie.

I'm mad, I'm sad, I'm disappointed. I know that this didn't have to happen. But now it's done and I must find a way to learn something from it. If nothing else, it convinces me to redouble my efforts with Azza. I won't throw her away just because she's difficult.

Fun House Ride

Whenever I get a mid-morning phone call from Upul, I always feel a tiny flutter of anxiety because my morbid imagination immediately takes over with visions of various disasters. His calls usually turn out to be more amusing than alarming, though, and this morning was no different.

It rained in Dhahran today (a whopping 2.2 mm but that still counts as rain). Upul rides a scooter so he of course has a rain coat, a bright yellow one. He called me to tell me that when he arrived to walk the dogs and came in the house in his yellow rain coat, Azza lost her shit (my words, not his). She lunged at him, bit at her crate walls and door, barked and growled. I think that response meets the standard of "losing one's shit." Of course Mimi and Harry offered their usual joyous greetings. Upul said that he went back outside and left the coat with his helmet. When he came back inside and spoke to Azza, she was more or less normal. But he said that when he let her out of her crate, "every hair was straight out!"

I've seen her in a state of extreme fear arousal before and she can indeed puff up like a cat. This enormous puff of hair forms over her shoulders, along her back, and across her hips. Even her tail gets fuzzier. She can vaguely resemble a poodle with a formal show cut, little puffs and balls of fur here and there, since the rest of her coat is so short and flat (but much softer than the terriers).

I told him to bring the coat into the house and put it on the stool and let her approach it and sniff it on her own terms. He did this while we were talking and reported that she puffed up again ("every hair is straight out, ma'am!"), approaching his coat only once then backing away growling. I told him to ignore her and let her get used to it, and to walk her only if it wasn't raining too hard. I didn't get a second call so he either walked her successfully or decided not to walk her at all.

Loosely related to these events was the walk that MW and Boodle and the dogs and I took this evening. It's very cloudy today and the normal dusk became rather gloomy with the early sunset. I think MW set us all off when she started and gasped at what at peripheral glance could have been a large cat but turned out to be a piece of wood next to the path. Things went downhill quickly.

There were indeed very real cats around every corner, crouched beside every palm tree, perched on top of every can and bucket. It was like being in a cheap fun house ride where shrieking clowns and moaning skeletons randomly fly at your head while bright lights sear your eyes.

Mimi's first response upon sight of a strange cat is to bite the dog that is closest to her, which is usually Harry. When prevented from doing that, she goes for Azza, who is usually looking for something to bite herself. I've gotten quite good at separately cinching up Mimi's leash and Azza's leash with one hand while leaving Harry's leash untouched and simultaneously herding each bitch to opposite sides of me with my other hand. I can do this in a fraction of a second because I've had a lot of practice at it. To get the full flavor, you also have to add in Azza's 100-decibel barking and Mimi's weird trilling bark, more like a bird than a dog. MW has her own issues with Boodle who does plenty of his own barking and lunging. Harry remains oblivious to all of this as he simply can't see or hear well enough anymore to get involved.

Once the dogs were all nicely on edge, we happened to see a guy walking his dog on the other side of the street. Good grief, the dogs just lost it entirely. That was like the part of the cheesy fun house ride where the little car you are riding in takes a dip then a sharp turn to the right, slamming you into the cold metal side.

CircusK9: the fun house ride that keeps going and going!

Agility Season in KSA! Weeks 1-4

It's agility season in KSA again! The class has met four times already so as usual I’m behind on my updates. We have a really big class this time with 10 handlers: five novices, four returning intermediate level, and one new but more or less intermediate level (she took some classes in the US but never competed). And I’ve got a new partner in crime (co-instructor) as well: CJ, the handler of the crowd-pleasing mini dachshund Webster. 

It's a full house! We've got shade! And dogs and handlers galore! Read on for more details.

When MH left the Kingdom this past spring, I knew that I’d have to find someone to help me with the classes. None of these folks has ever competed so I couldn’t use that as a criterion. And most of the intermediate handlers have made good progress and show a fairly good understanding of the basic handling moves and the overall objectives of agility. All of them have the occasional setback (dog getting the zoomies, dog not recalling, handler muddling crosses) but all of them show excellent patience and perseverance. In other words, some of them that are becoming rather decent handlers so I couldn’t pick one solely on the basis of skill level.

One of our intermediate handlers PM (on the left) and her yellow lab Nellie (Azza's BFF). They are setting up for a tunnel exercise.

I chose CJ because she has shown a good understanding of fundamental handling and because she and Webster made a lot of progress in their first six months. It was an added bonus to me that CJ works in education and understands techniques of instruction and methods of learning—important things when you are on the other side of the instructor-student relationship. I also chose her because she has a big car so she can share equipment hauling duties! And because I knew that I could work with her. And because I thought that she would agree to do it! 

CJ in the foreground watching LF set up her golden retriever Amira for a send to tunnel exercise.

We’ve been dividing the class up into novice and intermediate groups for two reasons. The first is the obvious one: the two groups are working on very different skill sets. And dividing them up reduces the time everyone has to wait for their turn. CJ and I are alternating between the two groups to spread ourselves around as much as possible. I heard from three of the intermediate handlers that they thought that she did a “pretty good job” the first week! I was pleased to hear this because I know from experience that they are a tough crowd! I sort of tossed her into the deep end of the pool but she seems to be offering the students consistent and gentle guidance.

CJ and I are doing a good job of managing the division of labor. The limiting factor is still our fairly paltry collection of obstacles. To add some new challenges, I made four jump wings (enough for two jumps) out of scrap PVC, a piece of white plastic garden paneling that I cut up, and a bunch of zip ties, and introduced those to the intermediate handlers along with pinwheels. That went so well that the second week I had them work on 180s with and without wings. Because some of the equipment is used by the novice group at the same time (so far just a couple of jumps and a tunnel), I have a reduced set of obstacles to use for the intermediate sequences. But this is giving me great experience in designing challenging sequences with limited equipment. 

Waiting patiently. From left to right, LF with Amira, MW with Jack, SS with Abby (intermediate team), BW with Jake, and MC and M with Seamus.

Here are two course maps for the intermediate group to give you an idea of what I mean by limited equipment. Those of you who know agility will immediately see many more sequence possibilities in each arrangement. That's by design, of course. I designed the two set ups using the equipment I had available then worked out 4 to 5 different sequences for each. That certainly kept that group occupied for the full two hours!

Another new element I’m incorporating is a group sit/stay exercise at the beginning of each class. MH and I got tired of holding dogs who wouldn’t hold a sit/stay no matter where the handler was (1 foot away or 10 feet away). It was clear that people weren’t doing their homework. So I decided to make them do a group sit/stay. At a minimum, they now get some practice in class each week and perhaps some of them will be shamed into doing some practice at home when they see other dogs holding their stays in the face of all sorts of distractions. 

Getting sorted out in the group sit stay. From left to right, MC and her daughter M with Seamus (yes, he's a wire fox terrier!), JW with her small mix Jack, BW with her poodle mix Jake, JJ with her daughter H and their terrier mix Rocket.

And a brand new feature of class is the shade tents you see in the photos. We nearly broiled ourselves the first week so PM called in some favors with some friends in high places and arranged with Recreation to set up the tents each week. I am well aware of what the weather is like elsewhere (I have weather widgets on my computer at work for various spots around the U.S. and Europe); in short, everywhere else the weather is suitably fall-like. Here, it is still topping out near 100F most days. We don't have normal trees with leaves that turn colors. We have trees but they are desert-adapted and/or what I'll call primitive species that don't have that kind of seasonal behavior. We don't have frost or a nip in the air. We certainly don't have rain. Instead, we have 85% humidity from sunset to noon every day. There isn't much sign of the weather cooling down so the shade tents have been an extremely welcome addition.

With so much going on during each class meeting, literally a two-ring circus, it's been hard for me to take a lot of photos. I am going to try and videotape parts of a class in November so maybe that will compensate a bit for the lack of photographic evidence.

HD and her daughter (holding the leash) running Savvy, a desert dog of probably Canaan dog origins. Savvy arrived in class terrified and ready to either bolt or kill every dog she could see. She now accepts petting from most of us and is actually jumping jumps with enthusiasm. HD doesn't want to let her off the leash for fear of her either running off or attacking another dog, both always a possibility with these desert dogs.

After four weeks, the novice handlers have been introduced to recalls and sends over a jump (with variable handler, jump, and dog spacing), the jump-tunnel-jump sequence in its various permutations, and left and right FCs using two jumps but with the third off-course obstacle a jump or a tunnel. Their dogs really aren't showing much signs of tunnel-sucking yet but it's never too early to start working on your handling in front of an off-course tunnel.

MC and her daughter M with their wire fox terrier Seamus. I am quite excited to have TWO junior handlers in the class. Good experience for them, good experience for me.

I would like to integrate the two groups in a couple of weeks. This increases wait time and I may have to pull out one jump to have people work on jump skills while waiting, but it will allow us to throw more complex sequences at the novice handlers that are embedded in the intermediate sequences. I've also got plans for a cross clinic since a few of the intermediate handlers are a bit rusty.  A jump box and jump circle would be perfect for the clinic and excellent set ups for the novice handlers as well. There is no lack of things to work on each week, that's for sure!

Training Azza 11

Azza is now about 10 months old. It’s hard to remember that she is still a baby because she is so large, 15.7 kg. Perhaps she’s grown a neuron or two recently, bringing the grand total to about five, because she has been noticeably behaving better the past couple of weeks.

Mimi chomping on Azza's head during play.

What do I mean by “better”? The most obvious change is a reduction in some of her fear responses. While we were on a walk last week, a stroller passed us twice and she did nothing. Nothing. Just a couple of weeks before that she saw a stroller approaching and totally lost her shit, lunging, barking, showing teeth, hackled up. Another example: I bought some flowers from the Garden Club yesterday at lunchtime and left the flat on the porch in the shade. When I took her out to potty, she noticed this new thing right away but instead of growling at it, hackling up, and backing away like she usually does, she cautiously approached it and sniffed it (I was giving her the command “what is it?” to encourage her).  She has ignored it on subsequent trips out whereas in the past she’d show a fear response for a couple of days every single time she encountered the new thing. Ignoring it! That is a gigantic leap forward for Azza. 

Joyful.

Happy Harry. He's been sprayed with the hose, nibbled on bits in the grass, and generally enjoyed his morning out with the pack.

Yet another example: Aramco is making a mysterious construction project involving a 3-foot deep trench across the full length of my building. Harry ignores the trench but likes to pee on the orange fencing and on the boulders that get dug up and tossed to the side. Mimi immediately wanted to jump into the trench—of course, she’s a proper little terrier and no flimsy orange fence can stop her. Azza gave it all a good sniff but not once did she show fear. I had literally steeled myself when I opened the gate to take her out to potty that first time with orange fencing and piles of sand and rocks and trenches ringing our little sidewalk, fully expecting to have to drag her past all that mess to a patch of undisturbed grass. She didn’t react at all. 

Nellie is fast but Azza is faster. Azza can change directions in a flash. My little camera can't keep up.

I classify these types of incidents as “fear of new things.” She is behaving better by showing more tolerance of (and indifference to) “new things.”

She’s also doing much better at ignoring people who pass us on our walks. I still have to shorten her leash a bit when people pass us to prevent her from doing anything unexpected and to keep her on a straight path but in between sightings of passers-by, she is able to walk along on a loose lead, her head even with the terriers. Almost like a switch has been flipped, she has been doing far less of the obsessive head-turning and staring at people coming up behind us.

I was horrified to realized when I cropped this photo that Mimi has a mouthful of Azza's skin! Man, those terriers are ferocious! Azza puts up with this and more.

I call these types of behaviors “misinterpreted threat”. She is behaving better by showing a better understanding of the fact that there are other people in the world and most of them have nothing to do with her in the potential or the actual.

As an aside, I hold the leashes in my left hand. Harry and Mimi know they are to walk to my left or in front of me. They usually walk side by side. I hold Azza’s leash in my left hand as well but I trained her to walk to my right. This prevents “braid-o-matic” action and keeps her from crashing into them in her random flinging about. I extended this concept so that Azza’s heel position is on my right. Yeah, not kosher for formal obedience but who cares. In fact it makes for a great parlor trick. I can put Mimi and Azza in a sit/stay, walk to the other end of the room, turn and face the dogs, and call Mimi to a heel on my left while Azza remains in the stay then call Azza to a heel on my right to end up with a dog on either side of me. I use the same command “get ready” for both of them but they know which side they are supposed to go to.

Happy Azza covered in water, sand, and dog spit.

One of Azza’s biggest training issues right now (besides the accursed tippy board) is greeting transitions. She isn’t able to calmly greet other people or dogs then continue with whatever she was doing before. When greeting, she goes into meltdown mode, thrashing and flinging herself around with the fit usually ending with her literally melting into a puddle on the ground. She frequently pees when greeting. But even her reaction to greeting transitions is slowly changing. When we meet up with MW and Mr. B or PM and Azza’s BFF Nellie, Azza still does her meltdown act. But I’ve trained my friends to simply continue walking after we humans greet each other (and the terriers and the other dogs give each other polite sniffs). I keep a good grip on Azza’s collar and we all ignore her thrashing. The time it takes for Azza to return to normal is getting shorter and shorter. Two months ago I’d spend up to 10 minutes trying to prevent her from throwing herself bodily at the other person or dog, all the while dragging her forward in some semblance of a walk. She is strong and remarkably lithe. It is like holding on to a giant orange centipede. With teeth (she can be mouthy when frustrated). Now, in just a minute or two we are all calmly walking in a group of four dogs and two people.

PM, Nellie, Azza, Mimi, and Harry. They think she has a treat but she really doesn't. She was trying to lure them all closer for a photo.

I mentioned this to PM the other night as we were watching Azza and Nellie chase each other around a backyard: I was not sure that Azza was ever going to become normal enough to keep. I was afraid that I might ultimately have to put her down. With those fear issues and the great ignorance of dog behavior around here, I couldn’t risk that she’d end up in a family with kids or with Saudis. But there she was, playing with Nellie with full joy and abandon, using proper signals to start and stop play, drinking from the water hose (I give full credit to PM who patiently taught her how to do that), coming when called, standing quietly with no restraint while I hosed the sand and dog spit off her before we started for home. 

Azza and Mimi sharing the hose for a drink. PM spent months teaching Azza that the hose wasn't a thing to be feared.

In short, like Pinocchio, she’s becoming a “real dog.” 

Training Azza 10

It’s the humid season here in Dhahran. Temperatures are topping out around 102F or so but the humidity is brutal (it was more than 80% this morning, and yet it still wasn't raining). The water in the air mixes with the ever-present dust to create a hazy brownish soup. I don’t have to do anything outside to break a sweat; simply walking out the door is enough.

Still, the dogs need their daily walks. So the other morning, we set out on our usual morning stroll. Harry and Mimi were walking shoulder to shoulder as they often do. They are well matched in size and gait and I think they look very, very cute. Other people must think so as well because I often get comments and smiles from passersby (sometimes even Saudis smile at them). To my great surprise, after I let Azza have a bit more leash than usual, she decided to walk right next to them. It was quite a sight to have the three dogs arrayed perfectly in front of me, calmly strolling along the sidewalk, heads up, tails up, happy to be together in the here and now.

This is a fairly big achievement for Azza. For the past few months she’s only had about 12-18” of leash to use which keeps her right by my side. I do this so that I can control her head better. One of her fear behaviors is an obsessive checking on people coming up behind us. She will get so caught up in this loop that she will forget to walk and try to turn herself completely around so she can stare and worry and hackle and growl at whatever is behind us. If not checked, she will escalate until she lunges or barks at the threat. Azza’s fear behaviors are myriad but all show escalation patterns. I’ve learned that if I can redirect her as soon as she shows the first signs of fear, I can often prevent the escalation. One of those redirects is a verbal “leave it” command. This means “turn your head back around to the front and quit obsessing about whatever is behind us.” I use “leave it” for Mimi and Harry too but for them this command means “don’t eat that pill/piece of cheese/earring/object that I just dropped on the floor” or it could mean "don't even think about eating that berry/stick/worm/bird poop/cat poop that you just discovered on the ground" (there is poison all over the place because that is the only way that Aramco knows how to keep down the rat and mice populations; thus what may look like a stick or a berry might actually be a bit of rat poison).

I have to physically turn Azza's head forward about half the time now (she wears a head halter whenever she goes out so this task is fairly easy); the other half of the time I only have to say “leave it” and she’ll face forward again on her own and keep moving.

Making the leap from walking on a very short leash by my side to walking on a loose lead ahead of me is a big deal. There are always people and feral cats and bits on flotsam on the ground that could be eaten and she has to maintain a lot of self-control to earn this privilege. But at least on this particular morning, she decided to pull on her big girl panties and take a walk like a regular dog.

A Tired Dog is a Good Dog

PM got back from her summer leave on Wednesday, and the first thing on her mind was scheduling a walk/play date with her yellow lab Nellie and my dogs.

We usually let Nellie and Azza race around in an empty yard but I suggested that we meet very early this morning and take all of the dogs to a nice big yard. It took us a bit to find one. I had spied out two very nice empty houses in anticipation of PM's return but their yards turned out to be less than desirable: one had a massive sprinkler leak and standing water at one end and the other had a pool. It would have been so easy to let the dogs loose in the pool but we like slipping into the yards of empty houses and messing up a very nice pool with dog hair is one way to jeopardize our ability to continue to do that. So we marched on to my third choice. And as they say, third time's the charm.

This house is being readied to put on the bid list and a worker had turned on a sprinkler at one end of the yard (which surprisingly didn't have an underground system already installed). We decided to leave it on, a good decision since it turned out that the sprinkler became a focal point for the dogs' play. PM made a quick recon of the yard looking for feral cats (too many bad experiences have made us a bit cautious, right, Mimi?).

Nellie immediately pounded Azza to the ground and then they were off! Mimi tried to start some shit a couple of times but she eventually calmed down and joined in the chase but not the pounding. The dogs were running huge, looping arcs down and back, swooping in and out of the sprinkler. Even Azza is starting to appreciate the joys of spraying water (due in large part to the persistence of PM in getting her to drink from a hose). When it came time to catch their breath, they'd take a roll in the wet grass (Nellie also like to walk over the sprinkler so that it sprayed directly on her belly) followed by a nice, long roll in the dry, sandy grass at the other end of the yard. Chase and wrestle, get hot and out of breath, roll under the sprinkler, roll in the sand, repeat (for this post, I decided to use the "roll in the grass" label which I have only used once before in what is truly a different lifetime).

After half an hour, the girls (Nellie, Mimi, Azza) looked like they'd been living on the street for weeks: white parts smeared grey, bits of dry grass and sand stuck to their fur alternating with patches where they were soaked to the skin.

PM and I stood in the shade, drinking coffee and gossiping (she brought the coffee, two bananas, and a prezzie: dog cookies from Harrod's!). I had to laugh! I don't need a bribe to meet up with her and Nellie for dog walks and play dates. On the other hand, it's nice to be looked after!

Where was old man Harry during all this ruckus? I was a bit concerned about turning him loose with the crazed beasts but it turns out he is far more sensible than I gave him credit for. He's getting a bit fragile and if they were to run into him at full speed, he could really get hurt. But he never strayed more than a few feet from me and PM. He nosed around in the sand and grass for bits to nibble, came over for pets now and then, and more or less occupied his time quietly hanging out.

I mentioned to PM that it looked like his frisky days were over. And she said, well, he doesn't seem to be fretting that he can't go run about with the others. And that is exactly true. Harry was as wild as any terrier can be in his flyball heyday but he appears to be happy now simply being around his people and letting the young'uns have their play time. 

Puppy Class

Here's some really old news but I'm in the process of catching up on the blog so I thought that I would start here.

Back in April, after the regular obedience and agility classes had ended, I was pressured by some acquaintances to offer a puppy class. Because I was going out on leave in May and because a puppy class was something new for me, I decided to limit it to four weeks.

The puppy class was certainly an experiment. It isn’t something I can run on a regular basis since it will be uncommon to have a sufficient number of sufficiently young pups available at a given time here in Dhahran (I found out that the camp vet only has about 800 dogs registered, which is fewer than I expected). Still, I wanted to try my hand at working with younger dogs. Most of the dogs were around 16 weeks old, which is much older than you'd see in puppy classes in the U.S. But I have to work with the dogs that are here.

Azza and three golden littermates, two males and a female (the female is also on the ground next to Azza). I certainly wouldn't have chosen to have three littermates in the same class, but it worked out okay.

 I did a fair bit of research to figure out how best to structure the puppy classes. For example, I don’t allow the dogs in my basic obedience class to interact before, during, or after class (while they are on school grounds, at least). But this rule clearly had to be relaxed a bit in the case of young dogs that need to play with other dogs in order to learn proper play habits and signals, bite inhibition, and so forth. We started each class with a free "play time" in which the pups were allowed to be off leash so they could explore some of these signals.

 

I came up with at least four “what is that?” stations each week for the first three weeks of class. This stretched me a bit in terms of resources, but I managed to drag in plastic bags, a hair dryer, a cardboard box, plastic mesh that I taped to the floor, metal cookie sheets, orange cones, hats and abayas, an agility tunnel, a tippy board…you get the idea. For about 15 minutes of each class, I had the handlers take their dogs through/across the stations. It was a bit chaotic and noisy but that was also part of the exercise. I wanted to encourage all the puppies to explore and be rewarded for it. I also wanted the handlers to learn how to reward their puppies for all types of behaviors, not just the standard sit and come.

I included a short activity on grooming (cleaning ears, clipping nails, brushing coats) which turned out to be revelatory for one handler. She complained to me that her dog resisted all attempts at grooming. Turns out the woman was using a wire slicker brush! I'd resist that to if you tried to drag it through my hair! When I had her use a boar bristle brush on her dog, the pup stretched out on the ground, totally limp. She was so happy to learn this one new thing!

As I mentioned in a previous post, I also had the class play “pass the puppy." This is a great game to get the young dogs used to calmly interacting with other humans. Everyone sits in a circle and passes their puppy to the person to the right. After about 30 seconds of petting and treats, the dogs get passed to the next person, and so on until the pups end up back with their owner. It's another chaotic and noisy game but everyone really enjoyed it.

I brought Azza each week and even though she peed on the floor every time someone approached her to pet here or when she met a new dog, I think it was a reasonably good experience for her.

I have become much more comfortable working with kids and their dogs and now encourage parents to bring their kids as long as the kids are actually doing training, not sitting around doing nothing or even worse, being disruptive. I don't run a day care, right?

Because I only had four weeks, I decided to scale back the formal commands that I introduced to just the basics: hand touch, sit, stay, and come. But I am happy at how many activities I was able to include in just four one-hour sessions. I certainly kept those pups and handlers moving!

This has to be my favorite shot from the class. This is one heck of a dedicated owner. And yes, that chichi did go through the curved tunnel eventually! The chichi was a real hoot, a classic "giant dog trapped in tiny dog body" dog.

My Favorite Chair

I bought some fabulous dog beds from Orvis to replace the tired, musty, peed-on beds that I've been carefully tending for several years. I wash the covers every couple of weeks. I set the internal cushions on my porch to bake in the sun (I have an irrational hope that the extreme heat will kill various nasty things; at a minimum it helps them smell fresher). Still, dog beds don't last forever, thus the need for some spiffy new ones.

However, I can't get rid of the old beds just yet. Like any grumpy old man set in his ways, Harry prefers his lumpy, smelly bed to the new ones!

Ahh! My favorite chair!

I was pulling the second new bed out of its box when I turned to find Harry perched on the OLD bed with a perfectly good new one untouched beside him.

Harry will use the new beds sometimes--if he has no other choice. This time it was Mimi who chose the old bed first.

You might wonder why I get such large beds. Well, they are sized to fit Azza but the terriers do like plenty of leg room.

Kinky was there first and Azza slunk in with her toy after he was asleep.

Here's a gratuitous pic of my boneless non-terrier. She assumes this position fairly often and will fall asleep like this. Weird.

Pretzel dog.

Discretion versus Being a Terrier

Azza agrees with Falstaff that “the better part of valor is discretion.” The dogs and I had quite an adventure this morning. We weren’t even a third of the way along our usual walking route when we were attacked by a small grey feral cat.

I haven’t seen a feral cat in months (other than the one in the empty house a couple of weeks ago). Reports of missing pet cats have been coming across the email chains every few days for some weeks now. Even we dog owners have been on high alert since the beginning of the year. The reason for all of this? Two packs of feral dogs have staked out territories on camp and they are killing cats and stalking dogs.

The dogs have not yet attacked a person but they have attacked cats and small dogs in front of witnesses, who are not always able to successfully intervene.

I encountered the western pack, a group of five to seven light colored dogs that look a lot like Azza, back in January in the jebels. I had all three dogs with me. The pack split up and tried to surround us. I picked up Harry and Azza (she was just about 10 weeks old then and much smaller) and, dragging Mimi the entire way, managed to make it about half a mile back to the car. Mimi was ready to take them all on. I was terrified. I haven’t been back to the jebels since.

About a month later, in the pre-dawn dark, I encountered the same pack several mornings in a row in my area of the cluster housing ghetto. I managed to get the dogs back home after one very close encounter but the pack followed us all the way to my gate. I stopped walking the dogs in the mornings for about a month and then switched around my schedule so that I took them out only after the sun was up. That’s not much of a comfort zone since the dog packs hunt well into the mid-morning, but the hope is that I can spot them sooner.

My experiences are not isolated ones. Many of my dog friends who live in the cluster housing ghetto reported being followed or threatened by the same pack all throughout the spring. Having a larger dog doesn’t appear to be any protection. Many group emails were sent, many complaints were made to Aramco but very little effective steps were taken to deal with the dogs. (IMO, this is because no Saudis were complaining.)

To turn the narrative corner, any feral cats that are left have certainly had some interaction with the wild dog packs by now and so are on edge and on alert. Otherwise they’d already be dead.

So this morning the three dogs and I were quietly walking along the path next to the golf course, all of us enjoying the early morning cool (relative since it has hit 118 F here the past couple of days so cool mornings mean about 88 F), when suddenly the grey cat darted out of a hedge and ran right for the dogs.

I started yelling (profanity of course, what else?) and tried to drag the dogs away. Quite predictably I tripped on the leashes and fell down hard. When I fell, I dropped Azza’s leash but she only moved a few feet away from the squalling mess that was Mimi and the cat and warily watched the proceedings from a safe distance. Harry was sort of milling around the edge but he never got involved. He may not have figured out what was happening until it was over; his sight and hearing are not what they used to be. I pulled Mimi away but that fucking enraged cat charged at her again. I finally screamed and scrambled and dragged Mimi and Harry off the path where I could grab rocks and throw them at the cat who finally gave up the attack. Azza came right to me when I called her (thank god for lots of positive reinforcement).

I picked up Mimi and carried her nearly all the way back home. She had another ear bite, on the other ear as (bad) luck would have it, and was flinging blood all over the place with every shake of her head. This bite was more serious and required a liberal application of KwikStop (after a bath and cleaning of wounds of course).

I’m pretty sure the cat was not rabid (rabies is mostly confined to the fox population here and they have also been decimated or chased out by the wild dogs). The cat was stressed and very angry but not sick. Certainly his behavior was aggressive but logical given the situation.

Mimi was truly defending herself as we were all taken by surprise by the cat. But she is a tough little terrier and jumped into the fray without hesitation. I love her for that essential terrier-ness. But even if Azza's behavior was driven by fear, the fact that she chose discretion certainly is a point in her favor as well.

Not A Terrier

I've been pondering this topic for some time now. Azza is most definitely, most emphatically not a terrier.

Azza modeling her new ModDog collar. And yes, she can get decent satellite reception with those ears.

 I am still not sure that this non-terrier is a good dog for me. But while I continue to work on that problem, I've been making some observations re the states of terrier- and non-terrierness.

Fox terriers walk on their toes. The large pads on their feet rarely touch the ground completely, even when they run flat out or make tight turns.

In contrast, Azza the non-terrier moves her front paw like giant paint brushes. For the first time, I can examine the function of dewclaws up close. Fox terriers have their dewclaws removed when they are just a couple of days old, and now I understand why. They don't need them. Their wrists simply never bend enough to allow this sixth digit to come into play. Azza slaps her big old paws back and forth on the concrete and even at a normal walking speed her dewclaw can come into contact with the ground.

Fox terriers have front wheel drive. Their motion can be almost mechanical as their stiff legs swing far forward of their upright heads, pulling the rest of the dog forward. Azza has rear wheel drive, as her hind legs, seemingly proportioned for a rabbit instead of a dog, propel her forward.

Besides these interesting mechanical differences, I discovered tonight that Azza apparently lacks another characteristic terrier feature: blood lust for small furry creatures.

I was walking Azza and Mimi tonight with a friend and her dog (Boodle from agility class). We decided to duck into the yard of an empty house to let the dogs off leash.

I released the dogs and turned to latch the gate when I realized that Mimi and Boodle were in a serious fight with an animal. It turned out to be an extremely pissed off feral cat. MW pulled Boodle off the cat right away (he wasn't that committed to the fight, only following the leader) but Mimi had what would certainly have been a death grip on it so I had to slam her and the cat into the wall to get her to let go. There was blood everywhere, from whom I had no idea but Boodle had an ear bite (a nice bleeder) and Mimi was ripped up on her face and throat (some good spurters there too). She also had a giant mouthful of fur. The cat was very much alive when we left it.

And where was Azza during these adrenaline-filled few seconds? Sensibly crouched 15 feet away then hiding behind MW and Boodle, waiting for the drama to subside. Once we got both dogs off the cat and dragged them a few feet away to catch our breath, Azza gave the cat a few barks, as if to say, "Yeah, that'll show ya!"

At least Mimi comes by her terrier feistiness honestly. (The tale of The Incident and A Series of Unfortunate Events are worth a read at this point.)

Sigh. I'm afraid I'm a bit too used to cleaning up bloody terriers.

I'm pretty sure the cat was not rabid but I was worried about infection since Mimi got a number of deep bites, so I doused her wounds fairly liberally with betadine solution. I have not seen that for sale here so thank goodness I had some I brought with me on the original move out.

And Azza? She might yet turn into Cujo but she is not a terrier.